I once had a cousin whose name was Chris. I guess you can say that he and I were close. In fact, I chose him to be best man for my wedding. Speaking of that day, I find it hard to believe that my bride and I - as I still sometimes call her - tied the knot over twenty-eight years ago. Where does it go, says the old cliché? But getting back to Chris. I believe that one of the reasons that we had such a good relationship was because of how much we had in common, our taste for so many things seeming to always run together.
A long time ago there was a movie that we both really liked a lot. I would say it came out sometime around 1980. It was called The Wind and the Lion. Oftentimes, just in fun, we’d quote lines from it to one another. Whenever we did, he would begin to call me by the name of the main character - The Razuli - who lead and lived with a band of Arabs in a desert region. “Razuli!” he’d cry out to me in the man’s accent, “we have lost everything…but it is good, for was it not all upon the wind?” I have to say that at times I really miss Chris. It was in 2001 that the Lord chose to call him home.
Whenever I think of the words of the Razuli’s friend, I can’t help but think of Solomon. I believe that the man’s closing statement could have also been spoken by Solomon - one whose wisdom was such that it was unrivaled in his day. And who knows if any man’s knowledge and understanding of the things of this life had ever surpassed his. At the same time, it was he himself who told us that with much wisdom and knowledge there goes much grief and sorrow. No doubt this is because our world is a fallen world.
I have always been captured by one thing in particular that troubled Solomon. It runs akin to the words of the man in the movie: “Was it not all upon the wind?” This is what he shouted at the end, when all was lost. In other words, what he was saying, was that the things of this life have no real roots. Everything is passing; nothing can really be held on to. You may as well have to lay hold of the wind. I’ve heard parents of troubled teens talk about how they wished that they could have kept their kids little always, not realizing that our lives are on the wind. And so, needless to say, everything must move on; not only this, but it moves on quite quickly. You often hear it spoken of in those terms by the middle-aged and the elderly.
When I take walks in the summertime I pass by a field overrun by weeds. Once, many years ago, that field was called Hub Field. It was where many of the kids in the neighborhood played Little League Baseball. It almost always saddens me to look on it. Could it be that all of that happened over a half century ago, I’d ask myself. But where did it all go? It would become bewildering to me. I’d continue to look on and try to imagine certain kids at bat again, or others who were good fielders running for a fly ball or scooping up a ground ball. Sometimes I’d begin to wonder what kind of lives they may have gone on to have; if some never made it to adulthood due to sickness or disease; who of them might have taken wayward paths resulting in years of imprisonment; or how many may have lost their lives on foreign soil in defense of their country. But once we were all happy and carefree kids, I’d think to myself. Now I would start to feel melancholic, and if not careful, become trapped in the enemy’s web with my thoughts starting to run along the same lines as Solomon’s. Life suddenly begins to appear futile, senseless, and with satisfying answers not easy to come by.
What we as believers don’t often realize is this. Though Solomon had great wisdom, his wisdom had only to do with life as it appeared under the sun - and then without God, since he had become estranged from Him. Under the sun was a phrase that Solomon used over and again. In other words, the wisdom and knowledge of Solomon was connected to nothing more than a fallen world with its fallen inhabitants - and to this it was confined. Believe it or not, that is no longer the case for the one born of the Father in the New Day in which we live. With the offering up of the Son of God all has changed. A great shift has taken place in matters pertaining to the things of the Spirit. What does that mean, you may ask? Very simply, it means that grace now abounds. And as we move into its dispensation the results become benefits untold, one benefit being that we have come into a wisdom greater than Solomon’s - a wisdom pertaining to things not under the sun, but above it; a wisdom that Solomon would never know anything of.
No doubt, one of Solomon’s greatest achievements was the building of a temple for the God of Israel. And we can believe that he knew well how it was all to be laid out. He knew of where the bronze altar for burnt offerings was to go, along with the sea of cast bronze for ritual washings by the priests. He understood the setup for the golden incense altar, the table of showbread, and the lampstands. Then beyond all this was the greatly revered Most Holy Place. With its articles also was Solomon familiar. Not that he had involvement with any of these things, but surely the layout of them was known to him. Now here is what Solomon would never in his lifetime come to know. Nor would he have ever dreamt for it to one day be. But today it is common knowledge to the one born from above. In the wise king’s wildest imaginings, he would have never thought that the time would come when there would be millions upon millions of temples built to God - and none by the hand of man - but God Himself would fashion each one. Moreover, they would not be of dead materials but they would each one be alive and walking. Within them wouldn’t be the showbread, but the Bread of Life on which they would feed; neither would there be the light of lamps, but the Light of God by which they would walk. Petitions and praise would arise from their altars, to the Father, through the Son. To add to it all, He would make each one priest of their temple and prepare each one for the sacrifice. Then from out of a new heart regenerated - their Most Holy Place - would they ever come into communion with the God and Father of the whole family on earth and in heaven. These truths would have boggled the Old Testament mind to the max - Solomon’s included. And is there something amiss with believers today if we aren’t effected likewise?
Still there is more. As wise and knowledgeable as Solomon was concerning a vast array of things, how amazed he would have yet been over another mystery. First of all, he understood from the earliest inspired writings that Israel was to expect the coming of a Messiah one day. Though never would he have believed that it would be God in flesh. More than this, he certainly wouldn’t have imagined that all who looked for this coming One would become joined unto Him in one body - He being the Head, and all of the faithful the remaining members; that this merging would be likened unto a marriage, the two becoming one, believers brought into perfect union with the One never knowing beginning of life nor end of days. Intimate beyond description it would be - a calling granted not even to angels. Because of the day in which Solomon lived, neither he nor any of his contemporaries were privy to the things unimaginable, once kept secret by the Maker of the heavens and the earth.
It continues. In Solomon’s day there were certain men set apart by Jehovah God as prophets to the people. The Spirit would come upon them at the appointed times. At these times they would act, write or speak, in accordance with the mind of the Spirit. As servants of the Most High they performed the duties to which they were called. Upon completing the task, the Spirit would take leave of them. All of this Solomon understood. Yet this is what he would never know: that far off in a future Day, no longer would just the specially chosen speak by divine inspiration, but all who were of faith would do so, and by the Spirit abiding within them - no longer just upon them. In this way He would remain with the elect forever, never departing; not only this but upon His entering them He would cause for their own spirits to become alive unto the Father - born of God - so that they would now walk before Him as sons, and no longer as servants. Had this been shown to Solomon, it too would have sent his mind whirling.
And it goes on. As I pointed out earlier, Solomon was familiar with all that was set on display in the temple. What he didn’t know was that these things were not an end in themselves. Instead they were types and representations of the real - what would arrive in the New Day. Such items merely foreshadowed the things of true significance. But I doubt that Solomon ever gave any thought to what the articles of the temple may have stood for. If he did, I highly doubt that he came to the right conclusions. Let’s take the showbread for instance. We today know that it pointed ahead to a time when Living Showbread would walk the earth - the Bread who would be food to a man’s spirit, His blood becoming drink indeed. Together they’d be all that would be needed for life abundantly; daily is the man of faith to partake, now and forevermore. The understanding of this also would have staggered Solomon along his way.
But then there would come the ultimate. There was some light given in the Old Testament to what would befall the Messiah at the end. However, nobody of that day would understand the matter clearly. For it wasn’t shown to that ancient people that the blood that would flow from Him would flow to the ends of the earth. Enough then would it be to ransom every man’s soul from the sin that had come upon the whole world; for He would drink of its Cup for all. Nevertheless, being pure as He was before the Father, the Cup hadn’t the power to seal Him in the grave. And since He had died for all, so also would His rising be. In all that Solomon contemplated throughout all of the years of his sojourning, would such a plan ordained from on high have ever entered his mind? I think not. But to us of the New Day it has been revealed.
About many things under the sun was Solomon wise, but about the true and meaningful and eternal things above the sun, he had no clue. The writer of Hebrews once told us that God had provided the greater things for we of the New Testament age. Believers who walked the earth prior to this time had only the types and the shadows and the representations. Are we then better than they? I would say not. For the day will come and now draws near when all will be glorified together - made whole, and made perfect, and made every bit likened unto the Son of God, ageless in the heavens. Great Glory be unto the Author of all things.
- J. Pecoraro
